"No, all kidding aside babe, I may have to go out of town for a week or maybe two."
"What for"? Kimba questioned as she took another sip.
"Ah…well it's for work."
"Work….you work for Starbucks! Where the hell would they be sending you?"
"Ah….well, they want to send me to their main office for additional manager training."
"Oh baby that sounds great, I'm so happy for you! Maybe they will give you your own store to run. But do you have to go away for that, they can't do that in your store?"
"Well no, they need to send me and some others to their main location for the training. It should only be no more than a week maybe two," Aurora said hating to lie to her girl but the truth would be worse to have to explain.
"I'll miss you babe but this is great for you, I am so happy for you….and so proud," said the pretty redhead as she reached over the table and gave Aurora a tender little kiss upon her lips.
"Thank you for understanding," Aurora said lowering her head a little in an almost shameful posture.
"Oh babe, this is so good for you, I am so happy for you. But you have to call me every night….ok."
"You got it my love," she said as she took hold of Kimba by the back of the head and pulled her in close. "You will be on my mind the whole time." Aurora added as she gently kissed Kimba on her lips and gazed into her eyes.
"Oh yeah…..and you're going to have to feed Slinky when I'm gone," Aurora said with a grin.
"I love you babe…..but I'm not feeding that scary ass snake of yours."
"What, sweet little Slinky be afraid of?"
*****
"Ok here we go, 24 hours later and let's see what this shit is all about," Aurora said to herself as she sat down before the desk computer. Bringing up the web site for Kill Fest and putting in the magic code that opened its access, she watched as the screen opened like a computer game with silhouette figures of gunman firing weapons at each other and then the sign of a bullseye drew across the screen and the words "Kill Fest" blazed across the screen reminding her of video games from the early 90's when she was a kid. Then the words "Welcome Aurora Constantine" added to the screen followed by "Click Hear to view your game's adversaries" appeared in bright red lettering.
Without pause she hit the icon and in CGI computer cartoon fashion, images of herself and her combatants came upon the screen lined up like in some "Mortal Combat" videogame. Although her eyes did draw upon her own image first, she did check out the other competition as well. "Mother Fucker….my ass is not that big," she said out loud, not at all happy with their rendition of her in the cartoon form. But she did like that they depicted her with her ponytail nonetheless.